Haley Bryant 💛
@haleymbryant
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mom | principal @hustlefundvc | host @flowdotclub | 👼🏽 investor
Washington, DC
Joined May 2009
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Pinned Tweet
I’m excited to announce the
@HustleFundVC
Venture Fellowship.
For a long time, VC has been inaccessible to most people.
The career path is opaque, relationship building takes a ton of time, and there aren’t opportunities to practice the craft and build a track record without…
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Talked to a Black founder this week who took 160 meetings to close a $2m seed round.
& when things were tight, he didn't compromise - he turned down $$$ from VCs who weren't mission aligned.
Keep going.
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Met cofounders who were so in sync they'd pull up slides as the other was talking to reinforce points.
They deferred to each other's areas of expertise & listened to each other throughout.
If you're bringing >1 founder to the call, do it to highlight your teamwork. Do this.
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Female founders get 2x more negative questions when fundraising than male founders. And underrepresented founders in general are more likely to be put on the defense by how investors ask questions.
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Just met a founder who pitched over 400 VCs to close their pre-seed.
After one yes, they closed their round in 3 weeks.
Your early believers are out there.
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Just saw a “founders helping founders” footnote in an investor update with a recommendation, blurb and link to a fellow founders deck.
This is the way.
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In the last 2 years I've made ~30 investments into early stage cos.
Here are a few things I wish I knew when I started 👼🏽 investing:
- build process as you go
- learn by doing
- look at a lot of deals
- small bets > big
- startup communities = open
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I just found out that I’ll get to join the next cohort of
@hustlefundvc
’s angel squad, 👼🏽 training program on a mission is to democratize access to wealth creation through startup investing led by
@dunkhippo33
,
@ericbahn
,
@b_nicks11
and
@shiyankoh
.
How I got to angel investing:
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Companies building in emerging markets often launch with multiple revenue streams. While a western investor may view this as lack of focus, it's the founder's intentional hedge against likely regulatory and market based headwinds.
As capital continues to be scarce and startups…
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Want to become an accredited investor (regardless of 💰)?
Working on something w/
@ianklassen
…let me know!
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👋🏽 I’m Haley, an 👼🏽 operator & a Principal
@HustleFundVC
🦛
I started 👼🏽 investing to support founders from/supporting underrepresented communities.
I was prev COO
@AnimalzCo
a b2b SaaS content agency.
Come cowork w/ me
@flowdotclub
/workout IRL in DC!
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Everyone I've met
@chargebee
has been kind, solution oriented and gone out of their way to be helpful. It's one thing to say you're customer centric & a very different thing to live it. Waiting for the "How Chargebee built a customer centric company" case study - I'll take notes.
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When I started angel investing, I had no idea how to break into VC. When I became a VC, I was determined to change that.
Today, I’m excited to officially welcome our new cohort of
@HustleFundVC
Venture Fellows from our Angel Squad community to learn through doing, research, and…
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Any founder friends want to pitch 50+ angels live tonight?
Let me know...
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Be the person that helps someone else see a founder’s bigger vision.
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Everytime I come up to NYC I remember the 🚂 I took 7 years ago w/ my 3mo to land my 1st job in tech.
Never thought I’d end up in VC but, you can only connect the dots looking back.
My mom & sister flew in to help 👼🏽
Take the leap. You never know.
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Why don’t women talk to each other about money (salaries, savings, investments, goals?)
I’ve been wondering all weekend and asked friends on Instagram…the consensus is that we should.
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just shared a short list of companies w/ underrepresented founders that I'm pumped about w/ an investor/advisor friend.
who should else should i share this list with?
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👋🏽 I’m Haley. I’m a mom, the COO of
@Animalzco
, an 👼🏾 operator,
@flowdotclub
host + as of yesterday a Venture Partner
@HustleFundVC
💛 (Thanks for your support
@Educated_Change
@SQueenBryant
!)
I tweet about thinking, leadership, 👼🏾 investing + mom life.
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“You’re the 3rd DC based VC we’ve talked to this week!”
DC isn’t top of mind when people think about startup ecosystems, but that’s changing.
DMV startups raised $5bn in 2021 and $6bn in 2022. And we’re a lot more than govtech and cybersecurity. 👩🏾⚖️🔐
@cava
went public with a…
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believing in people when others don't has been one of the most rewarding parts of my career so far
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Almost every b2c company I've invested in has pivoted into b2b.
The exceptions?
Consumer apps that help kids & parents (also my best performing 👼🏽 investments to date (2 / 50) ).
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5 years of 👼🏽 investing
2020: spray & 🙏🏽
2021: focus on early stage
2022: identify areas where I have the best early-stage deal flow and opportunity to be helpful
2023: write checks into 1-3 early-stage companies building for underserved communities per quarter
2024: double down…
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At a conference where the entire front row and most of the panels have been composed of women and underrepresented founders and funders >>>
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So far this year, I've saved ~360 hours commuting thanks to
#remotework
. I've spent the saved time:
- January-March: napping 😴
- April-June: planning 📆
- July-August: pondering 🧠
- September-?: practicing 📝
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Last year, I reached out to
@mariarotilu
for advice on breaking into VC. She generously gave me time on her cal & accelerated my learning journey & network, helping me land a job w/
@HustleFundVC
. Tonight, I met her irl. Grateful for her mentorship!
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Asking for a founder: looking for someone (or a couple of people!) to help an early stage fintech with brand positioning, website design and marketing strategy. Any recommendations?
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Just woohooed out loud because an exceptional technical female founder I've gotten to know over the last 2 months accepted our offer!!
If you're curious to know more about what she's building, DMs are open :)
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Last week, I talked to a mix of founders just starting to raise & those closing out their preseed/preseed+.
It's amazing the difference 50-100 reps of practice on storytelling makes.
If you can pitch to angels / informally to early stage funds 1st, do that vs burning intros.
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Friendly reminder that time kills deals.
Close the customer, confirm the wire, make the crucial hire.
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Some of the best conversations I've had in the last ~6mos have been w/ idea stage founders thinking about fundraising.
Given VC $ % allocated to women & minority founders in would love to be a sounding board for more ppl earlier in their journey. DMs open.
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What do you do when you don't know what to do?
In 11 years of leading teams and over the last 3 growing
@AnimalzCo
from 15-110 people, the frameworks + resources that have stuck with me answer that question. I'll share 1 everyday for the next 30 days.
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Connected w/ a VC this morning who intentionally spends his time outside the echo chamber; enjoying the performing arts, going on long runs, plugging into the African startup ecosystem thru the small biz he runs. A needed reminder that there are so many ways to do this (any) job.
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Inspired by 3 conversations w/ emerging fund managers & friends of
@HustleFundVC
changing the face of venture capital.
A few highlights:
📚 resources that helped
@MacConwell
get started
🥇
@paigefinn
on being founder 1st
📈how
@OfficialBBrooks
thinks about valuations & hot deals
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4 learnings from Angel Squad x
@HustleFundVC
in 2021:
💰 it's a long game (cos take 5-10 yrs to 🚀)
❓ most important q = "what happens if things go right?"
📈 diversify risk w/ small bets to create an index fund of startups
👼🏽 great investors (& founders) can look like anyone!
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Angel investors: talking to a group of women just starting their angel investing journey next month.
What would you have wanted to know about deal flow starting out? What has/hasn't worked well?
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The
@HustleFundVC
GPs and founders have been friends since they got to
@Stanford
almost 24 years ago.
Yesterday, we wandered campus together.
@shiyankoh
has always been fearless. She pointed to a garage and shared how they’d put on roller blades to practice turning for⛷️ (ski…
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Companies getting pre-seed+/seed+ rounds closed seem to be:
- optimizing for speed > valuation/dilution
- raising at attractive revenue : valuation
- managing cash well
- focused on tranches of capital (250k-1m w/ strategic investors) vs large rounds (2m+)
- can get detailed…
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I'm excited to share that I'm now lucky enough to support the Angel Squad community that
@b_nicks11
kicked off for
@HustleFundVC
this year! 💛
We are excited to share that Haley Bryant (
@haleymbryant
) is joining us
@HustleFundVC
to support the Angel Squad community!
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I 👼🏽 invest to support founders from/supporting underrepresented communities.
I’ve realized a🪑 on the cap table (esp if ❌ diverse) is an opp to help cos hire & inspire inclusively to create the next gen of founders.
Cant wait for mind meld
@HustleFundVC
’s Angel Squad IRL! 🎉
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"Do the work no one else wants to do."
"Specialize deeply, and know the market better than a partner."
"Stop shapeshifting for the firm. Find/do you."
It was a privilege to be in a room with so many experienced, successful Black VCs paying it forward by sharing their hard won…
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Seeing more companies who want to break even before raising a seed.
Cash flow is leverage.
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Systems engineering is about looking at the big picture. At a fundamental level, everything in society begins w/ health.
If you're not healthy, you can't go to school, you can't work, & you can't support a family. It all starts w/ health.
- Jennie Nwokoye, founder of
@clafiya
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VCs ask a lot of questions.
As a founder, you can anticipate which questions you're most likely to get beyond why you, why now and what happens if things go right based on your business model.
I have a due diligence template with ~50 questions but tend to prioritze a few…
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It took a year to raise
@drinkhaus
’s 1st million.
@helena
raised the 2nd million in 2 days.
Incredible to connect w/ the founder building the 1st DTC liquor brand *ever* bolstered by 👼🏽s and investors who believed in Haus early.
#camphustle
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@khemaridh
“To be taken seriously as a Black woman, you have to be 2x as good as the competition.”
This both drove me to work hard and was a limiting belief that stopped me from exploring new things for fear of looking dumb / being unable to compete
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With over $288B invested H12021 (
@crunchbase
) and more and more people getting into 👼🏽 investing, separating signal from noise is 1/2 the battle.
Here's a short list of women sharing high signal insights to follow to help any investor along their learning journey 👇🏽
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Rage.
That’s what drives
@jesskah
, co-founder of
@AllRaise
& GP/CPO
@sequoia
to take on ambitious projects.
Jess looks for spike, grit, & spark in every founder she works w/, & invests/hires more inclusively x using
@TheRealFreada
’s “distance traveled” metric.
#camphustle
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Yesterday
@AnimalzCo
office hours, someone asked about our founding story. As an
@NBA
fan, I’ve always found the stories of the players as fascinating as the story of the franchise.
Read on to learn more about our founder
@smalter
& the impact he’s had on me + 100s of others 👇🏽
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In the last month, I've:
- created ~200 article ideas
- started 18
- published 13
- shared 3
I read something a month ago that reminded me that writing > reading. A conversation with
@hnshah
a week later reminded me "don't try, just do."
Begin again
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1/ I’m excited to share that I’m stepping into the COO role
@animalzco
alongside our new CEO (and my copilot)
@devinemily
.
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there's something magical about working with people who inspire you daily to up your game.
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So much of success is determined by how quickly you get back up and keep moving forward after failure.
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At the earliest stages, pitches aren't about perfection, they're about potential. If you expect a deck to speak for itself, you will miss out on some incredible founders.
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👋🏽 Black founders to follow (and support!) by sector
Add founders you follow + if you want to connect w/ folks on this list who are raising, DMs are open.
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So many people are going through tough sh*t right now. Be kind, be vulnerable, and play the longterm game.
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As the year winds down, lots of people are still on the hunt for a new job.
If you are/know someone looking for a job in tech, would love to connect!
💫 customer success
🛠 software engineering
👩🏿💻 product mgmt
🎨 ux design
💰 finance
📝 content
🤝partnerships
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Steve Jobs / wears sweaters in 4 seasons vibes
Welcome home chubbicat
#1073
! 🌈 ⭐️ ❤️
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Maybe women aren’t risk averse. Maybe, the current solutions don’t have product market fit.
Ty
@SallieKrawcheck
for getting +💰into the hands of women, & for pursuing equity & representation for women & underrepresented groups in all hiring, marketing & fundraising decisions!
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1/ In a disaster, "look for the helpers."
Many of the companies and founders that stepped up to absorb the outflows from the SVB crisis and provide a safe haven for bank deposits are on this market map.
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Today was a great day 💛
@b_nicks11
, thank you for creating Angel Squad a year and a half ago. Blown away by the humans who turned up for Camp Hustle and this community.
@HustleFundVC
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When a founder is asked a negative question, they can reframe the question as positive to promote their business.
❓Eg if an investor asks "How will you compete with market leaders?" (negative)
❓Answer "Are you asking how I will capture the market?" (positive, open-ended)
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I cannot overstate the value of being in spaces and surrounded by people that energize you. More of this.
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In the 11 months since
@b_nicks11
launched Angel Squad we've:
💰 invested $10m+
💼 supported >20 companies
🌍 welcomed investors from >20 countries
& we're just getting started! Be a part of the inclusive angel investing community we're building:
👉🏽
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I got my best work done in 2022 alongside an incredible community of builders, creators, operators & investors, 1% at a time.
Thanks for helping me start so many days right
@flowdotclub
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I have several intro calls today w/ founders sharing “the show must go on” vibes despite my offer to reschedule. And we are still writing checks
@HustleFundVC
👉🏽
I expect founder storytelling and execution ability to be all the more in focus now 👇🏽
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If this gets 100k RTs getting a
@flowdotclub
tattoo today 🌊
+ join the waitlist to feel better getting work done during your final sprint this year
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I look forward to Monday mornings.
I wake up early, do my morning routine, then sit down at my desk, light a candle and do something for someone else (write a card, send an intro, make plans).
It forces me to stop and think: what energy are you bringing into the week?
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1/ Flow state takes time.
I remember acknowledging that at the end of a
@flowdotclub
session a couple of months ago. It was 10P on a Thursday and I was working on a something I'd been putting off for
@animalzco
.
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Did anyone have a “we made it through 2020!!!” moment tonight?
Thankful for family, community and the pursuit of perspective this year.
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Feeling lucky that so many incredible Angel Squad members made the trip out for Camp Hustle! 🏕 x
@HustleFundVC
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One of the most important things I learned over the last 2 years is that people have to be able to come to you in hard times.
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Thank you to
@TheOrgCom
for hosting the
@HustleFundVC
community in NYC to learn about Allison Lee’s founder, fundraising & pmf journey at Hemster!
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Blown away by the tenacity of founders this month.
Congrats on making it to the actual end of March madness.
Take a nap.
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Sending a massive thank you to my cooler than me parents for a few days of fresh air, history & family time by the sea 🌊
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Making an intro without double opt in sets up the person you’re trying to help for failure.
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Met a founder who reduced her customer’s CAC by 99% then proceeded to tell me that she doesn’t know much about sales and marketing and is excited to find mentors.
Humility/curiosity are super powers.
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Just spent an hour reviewing decks w/ the masterful
@ericbahn
.
Takeaways include:
- emphasize traction! (giant ass numbers ftw)
- every deck needs 5 key slides (& not much else) problem, solution, market, traction & team
- visuals > text
More here:
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6yo just negotiated a 2 mini donut deal vs 1 based on price point, ate one and lmk he’s saving the other one for later.
My work here is done.
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2 companies founded, 6 venture fellowships, a degree in finance & analytics + big dreams (and plans) for a better future…is there anything
@JessTheVC
can’t do? So excited to have you in the squad! 💛
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The last few weeks have been hard in so many senses.
They've also been clarifying, growth inducing and exciting. To everyone who has shown up during this time, thank you!
Remembering today not to be afraid of ghosts (or anything).
Happy Halloween 🎃
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Excited to learn from
@chubbiverse
NFT co-creator
@StringStory
tonight during our Wednesday Angel Squad x
@HustleFundVC
event.
Their last drop minted out in 4.5 hours 🤯 Steve Aoki and
@ericbahn
are proud owners. They’re all about spreading good vibes & giggles 🌈 💎
Minted four
@chubbicorns
NFTs today, as my first NFT purchase. I feel like Chubbicat
#3336
is my spirit animal.
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6yo finally got his COVID vaccine. Relieved is an understatement.
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One of my favorite things about the startup ecosystem is how open it can be.
50%+ of my network is ppl I've been curious about connecting with/to.
@macconwell
has talked about this: connections create more opportunities for luck & serendipity.
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date night w/ chubbikun who is starting a diet tomorrow so 🌮 🌈
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most of startup building is type II fun.
I'm reminded daily
@HustleFundVC
where we are building a business alongside the fund.
I'm lucky to have a team by my side to climb mountains with.
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A few 💡 from cos that crush their monthly updates:
- send them the same day every month/quarter
- add their one liner at the top of every update (great context setting and love seeing the thinking evolve each period)
- bullet out numbers
- share what isn't working
- ask for…
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Moment of zen 🌊
Happy hour w/ almost 7yo + an hour on the couch flipping through the camera roll for throwback Thursday
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“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?'”
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Love spending time w/ people obsessed w/ building, community and pushing themselves and their companies forward. SF is always a delight!
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